


Cold Pressing AU: The Well of Gold - Roguing

by Alex_Quine



Series: Cold Pressing AU [9]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M, Post Mpreg, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-31
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2018-03-04 14:58:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3072308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alex_Quine/pseuds/Alex_Quine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Boromir returns to the field, only to find himself in a terrible race against time, with his future seemingly in the balance once again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Well of Gold - Roguing 1

"They mean to kill the Steward, Sire."

………………………………………………

Boromir straightened up, feeling the ache in his back and rolled his head from side to side, letting the morning sun warm his face even as the muscles in his neck and shoulders protested their ill-treatment. Around him on the field the line of walkers moved slowly, stooping now and then to pluck out a rogue; a seedling of another plant that would grow and smother the young grain.

He had wanted to see this field, the Well of Gold, through its first crop, to see for himself how it fared. When word came from the estate that the young grain was sprouted and ready for roguing, he had consigned Arin to Arwen’s care, so that he might not lose by his schooling for these few days, and rode south with no more than a couple of guards and one saddlebag of clean linen.

The estate steward, Hirrald, had listened respectfully to the Master’s plan to join the field workers on the morrow. After the evening meal, he had laid before Boromir a handful of half-dead plants, rogues all, and had explained to him what each was called and how to recognise them amongst the young shoots - which were the most greedy, which needed careful handling to take out all their roots. Boromir had earnestly committed them to memory. Even so, he knew that beside the roguers with several seasons’ work, he was slow. More than once he’d uprooted a seedling only to recognise it too late as young corn and then he had to bend once again to replant it, poking a hole in the cold earth with one long finger, muttering an apology all the while to the tender plant for its rough handling.

The other walkers were moving further up the gentle slope of the field. Taller than any of them by a head, he felt clumsy, stepping carefully between the rows. He was holding back the work and it was with a wry smile that Boromir ceded his place to the young woman who’d appeared behind him carrying a water flask, which she offered in passing.

Boromir trudged back down the furrow, unwinding from about his waist the sacking bag that contained the gathered weeds. At the field’s edge the pouch was taken from him and Boromir stood for a moment watching the fieldworkers. It was clear to see how the crop behind the roguers showed an even leaf green, whilst the great swathe of ground that remained to be worked was mottled with leaves of other colours, different shapes. The Steward approached as Boromir uncorked the water flask and raised it to his lips. He took a mouthful and nodded to Hirrald, swallowing down the cool water. 

………………………………………

The taproom was busy after market day and amidst the noisy scrum of packmen, traders and grooms that thronged about the bar, the cloaked figure sitting quietly in a corner passed unnoticed, except by one or two of the knarled old men who earned a living by fetching and carrying for any as would toss them a coin, whose business it was to notice all about them. 

They had spotted him and his escort too, men lounged about the inn’s crackling fire at the other end of the long room, at ease but yet aware of their leader’s presence. A Ranger from the look of him, they thought, and fond of a pipe. No pickings to be got there, but they had worn out their welcome with the serving maids with looking, and so idly watched as the hooded man tapped the ash from his pipe and began to clean out the bowl. The tips of his long fingers showed pale against the half glove he wore on one hand.

Their view was suddenly blocked by the broad body of a man-at-arms standing before them, offering them a fair return in coin for some trifling errands across the city. They might have thought to refuse the trade, the hour being late, but the man’s bluff tones brooked no denial and with hardly time to down the last of their ale, he hustled them to the door. In his corner, the hooded man pressed a thumb down on the fresh weed in his bowl and reached for a spill to light it, even as another of his company ushered forward a slight, cloaked form to sit on a stool across from him.

Aragorn looked up, over the flare from the newly lit weed, into the face of the woman sitting patiently on her stool, gloved hands folded on her lap. She looked tired, worn about the eyes and mouth, but there was courage in the way she met the eyes of her king without flinching. He beckoned forward the ranger standing behind her and requested ale for them both. When the tankard was set before her, she inclined her head in thanks and took a sip and then a longer swallow of the thin beer. Her hand barely trembled in setting it down, but over the rim of his own mug he could see the effort behind every movement. Elona of the Quays was come to make a desperate throw, to trade for the freedom of a wastrel against dangerous knowledge. 

“Well, little mother?” Aragorn saw her flinch at that. King Elessar had seen the son, slack-jawed and sullen, condemned by his courts, and for all she met his gaze bravely he was still wary of the woman and in truth he had too little time to smooth the way between them.

“Does my Jerad go free?”

“Jerad goes to Arnor as a recruit.” 

Elessar’s voices sounded cold and when her chin lifted and her mouth opened to protest, he continued, “Let us see whether my sergeants can wean Jerad from wine and dice and a way of slipping a dagger between a man’s ribs.”

She knew it was the best that might be hoped for, cursed silently the weak man who had bequeathed his son a greedy soul to go with his grasping fists, and nodded shortly, catching up the mug to take another pull at the ale.

“They mean to kill the Steward, Sire.”

Aragorn’s face betrayed nothing of the chill that gripped him. Instead, his eyes fixed on the woman’s face, he leaned forward and asked quietly “And who are ‘they’?”

“Men of Harad.” The woman’s words were breathed out so softly, that Aragorn could barely hear her, but her brows were bent and Aragorn could see that she conjured them again in her mind’s eye. “Wealthy men, at least some of them…dressed finely…five or six if you count the lad…and they took ship two nights ago.”

Once again she carried the tray, grown heavy with soiled dishes from their meal, grown slippery in her grasp as she realised the import of what she heard. Her eyes barely rose above the worn boards of the long table as she gathered in the horn spoons, the accents of her mother’s kin sounding in her ears. They must not see her, must not know she understood them. She must be as a thing, a stool, a plate-rack, a nothing, walking quiet in their midst.

The scent of the ranger king’s pipe weed seeped into her remembrance then and Elona started, gazing into the long, grave face and whispering, “They spoke of poison, of a sure way – they said he would beg to die.”

Aragorn laid his pipe down. 

“And did they say who would do this?”

Elona shook her head, replying hesitantly, “One they called ‘night comes’ or ‘nightfall’ - I cannot be certain.”

“And did they say why they would kill the Steward?”

This time her denial was vehement.

“No…no reason…I do not know, Sire.”

“And did they say when?”

The woman looked at him with frightened eyes.

“It is already done, Sire. The trap is laid.”

……………………………………………………

His back against one of the marker cairns by the side of the field, Boromir was sat, long legs stretched out before him, a horn beaker held loosely in one hand. The field hands, clustered by the gate stamped their feet in the gathering chill and wondered that he could sit so still on the cold ground, but they’d not leave without the Master.

The work on the field had been finished well before the sun began to set, but dusk was rolling in now and all were anxious to be gone from the place. Hirrald quieted the murmurs about him and went forward, clearing his throat, so that the Lord Boromir might be aware of his approach.

“Master? We’d best be going, sir, or Mariam will have my hide for keeping you out in the cold…”

Boromir could not remember such pain in an age, knawing at him, a vice-like grip about his chest, catching the breath in his throat so that he thought he would never breathe deep again…and still he stared out over the land trying to catch sight of some thing, he knew not what, coming towards him through the gathering gloom.

“Lord Boromir…sir?”

The man at Hirrald’s feet lifted his face and, surely a trick of the light, he thought him pale, with sweat standing out on his brow. Boromir bowed his head and slowly began to haul himself to his feet, one hand clutching at the top of the cairn to steady himself. As his hand planted on the old stone, suddenly Boromir cried out and doubled over, his other hand pressed to his chest.

Hirrald, cursing his own tardiness, started forward to wrap a comforting arm about him, but all Boromir could hear were running hoofbeats, echoing the blood beating in his ears, and confused shouts. Then the steward’s grasp was swiftly put aside and Aragorn’s hands were on him, Aragorn’s body took his weight as he slid to his knees and brought his king down with him onto the mud.

………………………………………………………………

The big horse was faltering, sweat streaked, foam flecks on his shoulders, and at the slight rise in the road Aragorn had to hold him hard between hand and heel to stop him staggering.

“Forgive me, old friend,” he whispered, urging the bay on for one more effort, but the horse was spent. 

Behind him, Aragorn could hear calls and drumming hooves. He hauled on the reins, bringing the horse to a slithering halt and almost onto its knees, head held low, ribs heaving. Aragorn slid from the saddle, casting the reins aside and from the man who rode up, he took the led horse at a run, hardly letting it break stride, swinging up into the saddle and leaning low onto its neck to urge it on.

They had ridden through the night and the next day, wearing out mounts as they went, driving fresh horses before them all the way, the sparest, lightest of his rangers riding herd to save the beasts and his old, too old, flesh straining to reach his love in fear the man was lost to him already. He had all but outrun his escort, but they saw the manor holding appear on the road before him and one lad, a hand wrapped in his horse’s mane to keep himself upright, with the last of his breath blew up the alarm, so that as Aragorn careered into the yard, there was already a capable dark-eyed woman waiting who pointed the way and when he would have swayed in the saddle she threw a girl-child up before him with orders to take the reins. Aragorn clapped his heels to the beast’s flanks and the iron-clad hooves struck sparks on the cobbled pavement as they went.

Now his limbs felt turned to lead with the weight of Boromir sinking, pulling them both down to the cold earth. Boromir seemed unable to speak, gasping for air, one hand clutching at the front of his shirt. With no word said, Aragorn stripped off his gloves, tore at Boromir’s shirt to open it and placed a hand over his heart.

It was warm, Aragorn’s touch was so warm his thunderous blood seemed drawn to it and the pain was leeching through Boromir’s skin, so that he moaned softly. At the sound, the crowd gathered quiet about them, rapt at seeing Elessar’s own hand succour their lord, seeing the colour come back to his cheek.  When Boromir at last slumped forward, his head cradled on the king’s shoulder, there was a collective sigh and men turned away to leave them in peace. Only the girl-child, the reins of the tired horse gripped tightly in her hands watched over them.

They knelt by the cairn, holding one another upright and although Boromir’s breath came easier, his heart ached yet, and although Aragorn knew his touch to have brought his love some easing of his pain, there was little joy in what seemed a moment’s respite from a nameless sorrow.

Stroking the sweat gently from his face, Aragorn whispered the plot overheard by Elona and begged to know – what had Boromir eaten or drunk this day? Who had handed him his clothes? Had he been cut by aught, it could be a scratch in passing, ignored till now? But time-and-again Boromir shook his head in bewilderment. He had taken no harm. All those about him were known to this place. They had shared the water amongst them, taken a simple meal, breaking off hunks of an old cheese, a meat pie cut with their own knives, no harm at all. It was just as he sat by the cairn that it had come upon him, like an iron band about him so that he could not breathe.

A cold wind was beginning to swirl about the hill-top and the horse sidled away from the child, who hung on bravely to its rein, chiding it. Aragorn suggested they return to the manor. It was as Boromir went to rise, that he set his hand once again upon the top of the cairn, set it to the old stone with the ring pattern that fitted his fingers and warmed to his touch and then he groaned and clutched at Aragorn, crying out, “Faramir!” and “I am not your only Steward!”


	2. Chapter 2

In dawning horror, knowing that there was no way they could reach Ithilien for days, they returned to the manor house. Aragorn lifted the child, a feather’s weight, a-top the weary horse and wrapped an arm about Boromir’s waist, whilst Boromir laid one arm over Aragorn’s shoulders and the other over the horse’s neck. And so they trudged down the lane, Aragorn trying in vain to banish from his mind the faded picture come clear again of Faramir in the Houses of Healing, close to death, waiting for his touch.

As they neared the manor they were met by a couple of the rangers, who took the horse and by Mariam, who ushered them through the hall and up to the solar where there was a fire burning. It had cost Boromir some effort to climb the stair, watched in silence by the curious eyes of the household and Aragorn, acknowledging tersely the bows that met his passing, had known better than to help. Mariam had no such compunction and as soon as the door was closed on the curious she came to him, offering her arm to steady him as he sank into a chair. Boromir shivered and she draped a blanket about his shoulders as Aragorn poured them both wine.

“I’ll bring your supper here, Master,” she said quietly, “and yours, Sire?”

Aragorn smiled faintly at her as she whisked out of the room and then drew another high-backed chair close to Boromir’s and sank into it, catching up his hand to keep the contact that seemed to ease his love’s pain. Now they were at rest, he was bone- weary; the tumultuous ride had left every joint aching.

They might have slept where they sat, but after Mariam had cleared away the remains of their meal, pursing her lips, saying nothing about the quantity left uneaten, she turned down the coverlet on the great bed and would have knelt to draw off the King’s riding boots, but that Aragorn put her hands aside gently. Smoothing her skirts down the woman picked up the tray and quietly left the room. 

It was only when he heard the latch raise again some minutes later that Aragorn realised he had been dozing. In the chair beside him Boromir was slumped, hardly stirring as Mariam entered carrying jugs of hot water, which she set on a dresser beside a basin and bobbing a swift curtsey to the King, left once more. In the corridor outside Aragorn heard her exchange a few words with the ranger on guard and knew they would not be disturbed again.

They might well have shed no more than outer clothing and fallen grimy and exhausted onto the bed, but once roused Boromir had been insistent that after the long ride his King should be at ease and stooped to take off his boots, talking all the while about the roguing of the field. He must be doing, busying himself about the room and Aragorn let him be. He set the brazier fair for the night with turfs, dug out a clean nightshirt from his saddlebag and looking up to find Aragorn stripped, pouring water into the wide basin, Boromir took the cloth from his grasp and began to wash him. 

As the man’s hands moved across his skin, Aragorn was silent, for although there was such gentleness in his touch that it moved him almost to tears, there was none of the lover, but everything of the beloved. Boromir dried him with a soft towel and then slipped the nightshirt that had been warming before the fire over his head. 

It was as he straightened the wide collar of the shirt that Aragorn caught his hands, holding them flat against his own chest and looked into Boromir’s troubled face, saying, “He is strong, your little brother. Like his ranger bow, with strength to bend and to endure.” Boromir nodded slowly, but as Aragorn began to rid him of his sweat-stained clothing, he murmured, “Even a bow may break…” 

They must have slept at some point in the watches of the night, once Boromir had talked himself into exhaustion with tales of their childhood in Gondor and sometimes it seemed to Aragorn that Boromir had forgotten that it was Thorongil who held him close. But at last the body beside him lay still, with heavy limbs and even breathing. Aragorn heard the guard change outside the door, felt Boromir stir, heard him moan and when he placed his hand on Boromir’s breast, heard him whisper, “Hush, I’m here…” Then his own eyelids grew heavy and a welcome darkness took him.  

When he awoke it was to see Boromir slipping from beneath the coverlet into a grey dawn, padding towards the brazier and breaking open the night’s banked-up turf to breathe the fire back to life and add fuel that spat and crackled as it caught light. When Boromir turned from the heat and saw him watching, Aragorn drew back the cover and, as Boromir slipped back into the warmth of his embrace, he looked keenly into his love’s face. Boromir seemed strained, skin taut about his temples, the creases about his eyes a little more pronounced, but just now there seemed to be no pain.

Boromir laid one hand over Aragorn’s and squeezed gently, saying, “I have no fine riding horses here, love, but we will see what the surrounding estates might provide.” His thumb stroked across the back of Aragorn’s hand.

Aragorn bent his head to lay his cheek upon Boromir’s shoulder, saying “And how goes it with you?” The thumb paused and Boromir answered, “I am in no pain. It is only as though a weight lay upon my chest and catches at my breath.” He propped himself up on one elbow, growling, “I’ll not hold you back, but I will come to him. If need be, I will travel on behind,” he paused, finishing quietly, “and if it is allowed to us, I will look in my brother’s eyes again.”

They had eaten their morning meal seated in the body of the great hall, surrounded by the bustling household. Hirrald would have preferred that rather more ceremony mark the presence of the King, but Mariam was content to send out such fare as a well run manor might have in Spring, and on some other occasion they might have taken more time to savour a cake of new-laid eggs beaten thick with herbs, fried with slices of a fine home-cured ham. Aragorn had gone first to visit the stables and returned tight-lipped, confirming that none of those beasts could start for Ithilien, but he still had a brief, sweet smile for Mariam as she set down a fresh basket of wheaten rolls before him. 

Boromir turned to beckon over Hirrald and saw beyond him the girl-child who had ridden out with Aragorn, walking briskly towards them between the tables. She had something clutched in her hands and a determined expression. Even as Boromir began to discuss with Hirrald where best to acquire fast horses, she came up to his elbow and put a hand on his sleeve, tugging at it.   Aragorn looked up from his plate at the moment that the girl placed the object on the table in front of Boromir, who was aware of Aragorn’s knife poised momentarily in mid-air.

As Boromir picked up the long, white-gold feather, Aragorn leaned towards her and asked quietly, “Where did you get this, child?”

Her eyes fixed on Boromir’s face, the girl replied, “On the Well of Gold…it is for the Lord Boromir, who is Master here.” 

At that she turned on her heel and went, and surging to his feet, Aragorn turned to Boromir, saying urgently, “Can you walk so far?”

Boromir snorted derisively, declaring “Aye, I’ll do” and heaved himself up, as Aragorn strode down the hall and Hirrald, with more tact than he might have been credited with, thrust his own tall staff-of-office into Boromir’s hand saying, “It’s a stiff pull, that last brow of the hill.”

Mariam had shrugged his cloak over his shoulders as he left the hall in Aragorn’s wake and as his chest ached with the climb, Boromir thought himself back to the figure of Gandalf, staff in hand, striding out at the head of their company, his robes swirling about his ankles. A slash of fire across his breastbone brought him up short, leaning on the staff, gasping for breath, but he could see that Aragorn, hand-in-hand with the child, had reached the top of the field and he would be there too.

As he half stumbled across the ground towards them, the child was showing Aragorn how the feather had lain, a-top the big cairn where they had met the night before. Aragorn beckoned him on and pointed to the old ring stone, saying, “It lay there – place it there once again.” 

Boromir, his King’s man in all things, bent to set the feather down, but instead found himself on his knees beside the cairn. His outstretched hand had fitted to its place. The tips of his fingers burned and a sudden darkness swept over the land, then a flash of light and then darkness again turning to bright morning sun. Beside him came Aragorn’s joyous shout and the child was laughing, clapping her hands and stretching upwards to where, circling the hilltop…sweet love! Boromir had heard of the great eagles, but never seen one and here were two wheeling above them in-and-out of the sunlight.

Boromir was sure that his jaw hung gaping. Their wings must span half the field. He could feel his hair blown by the draught as they sailed by. Aragorn had sent the child scurrying to the safety of the lane, where a knot of onlookers, was pressed against the further bank. As he stooped to raise Boromir to his feet anxious cries alerted them that the birds were coming towards them fast, gliding up the rise of the hill. Boromir saw the huge claws stretched out before them, cruel hooked talons that could surely take a man and then there was a thunderous rush of wind as their pinions flared and the creatures settled beside the cairn. 

Unseen by the crowd, Aragorn momentarily gripped Boromir’s hand and then stepped toward the lead eagle. His tall form barely reached its shoulder and the bird first shook its crown feathers in greeting and then dipped its head to hear him speak.

“You are well met, Gwaihir Windlord.”

Boromir knew that this greatest of eagles had the power of human speech, but still his blood thrilled to hear the deep tones, not unlike Gimli’s speech, so that he wondered whether there was a voice of the mountains that all creatures shared.

“Elessar Telcontar, you have scorched the earth in your passing. The birds of the air told that you travelled so fast you left foundered beasts in your wake, Great King.” It dipped its head again and towards Aragorn, prodding him in the chest with its huge beak, “Little Eagle.”

Aragorn began to relate their tale and at one point Gwaihir looked briefly to Boromir, saying “The Captain has been a friend to my kin and kind. Ithilien is not so far.” At this Boromir felt his heart leap. Just as it had borne Gandalf, the eagle could set the best of healers at Faramir’s bedside and now Boromir began to be impatient to see Aragorn leave.

All the while Boromir was aware that the second bird never shifted its gaze from him. Comparing their colouring, this was surely the eagle whose feather he held. A fierce golden eye was fixed on him and at last Boromir turned to meet its gaze, gripping tightly to the staff. The bird watched him for a few moments more and then stretched up, spread its wings and beat them against the air, raising dust that stung on Boromir’s eyelids as he closed them against the blast. 

The white-gold eagle cried out with a high screech that set Gwaihir to calling and the men turned their heads from the piercing cries. Finally, they settled again, Gwaihir stroking his beak over the crest of the other’s head. When he turned again to the men, the Windlord’s eye lit on Boromir stood four-square by the cairn, staff in hand, and he tilted his head.

“Even in the days of Thorondor, greatest of eagles, summons came but rarely from this old field. Most had forgotten our tie to things past, caught between staff and stone, in thrall to the master of the field if he could wield its power. But memory lingers like a faint spotting on the eggshell and so we are come again to the Well of Gold, Boromir of Gondor.” Gwaihir tossed his head towards the golden eagle. “Meneldor has not the speech of men, but he is called ‘the Swift’ and ‘Wind-runner’. He will bear you safely.”

At this Boromir found himself once more bereft of speech. He had called them? This great eagle said that he had called to them. No, it could not be!

All of his life magic had driven him; legends with the force of iron bands, visions that haunted dreams, the seeing stone in his father’s hands and the foul things that flew above his city’s gates. He had fought and lost to magic and he had taken of its ancient best, his boy, and then put it firmly behind him, determined to be a plain man and a better one, but now it would make of him an uncanny thing. And it bade him go where no man had domain. To fly, that was for Witch Kings and wizards. It was so high…there was sweat prickling on his back…he could not risk Arin’s future so, not even for Faramir…his brother would understand…and yet…

Aragorn had sent a ranger running back to the manor house to bring up his saddlebag, but when he turned once more to the cairn he could see the turmoil on his lover’s face and came to him quietly, saying, “Sam has flown with Meneldor.”

“Aye, well I’m a mite heavier than Master Gamgee,” Boromir replied grimly and was little cheered by what he felt was the eagle’s ‘measuring’ look.

Just then Hirrald strode towards them, hardly believing what he had heard, and although his stomach roiled and there was a sour taste in his throat, Boromir smiled at him and nodded briskly.

“The King is bound for Ithilien, Hirrald, and I go with him.” 

Concern was etched on the man’s face, so Boromir added firmly, “The lords of the air do us honour, Master Hirrald.” 

Hirrald mustered up a faint smile and Boromir shed his heavy cloak into Hirrald’s hands, then held out the staff to him, saying gruffly, “My thanks, that last part is a stiff climb indeed.” 

Aragorn turned to Gwaihir with some talk of winds and weather and as Hirrald went to leave, Boromir caught him by the sleeve, saying lightly,

“A stout stave is a help-meet. Where did you find this one?” 

He got a casual reply.

“Oh, it has been at the manor for aye, my Lord. It is just the old steward’s staff.”

As well, thought Boromir, my Father did not know of it.

“Mind it well and I daresay it will out-last us both.”

The young ranger was returned now with the precious pack and once Aragorn had slung it across his body, Gwaihir nestled to the ground so that the ranger could leg Aragorn up onto his back. A light harness girth-strap, from one of the manor’s carthorses thought Boromir, about the base of the eagle’s neck, gave him a hand-hold, but even so Boromir watched Aragorn using long thigh muscles to help him balance as Gwaihir rose to his full height and turned to face down the hill.

Faramir, brother mine, thought Boromir, as Meneldor stooped to his touch, it is too long since you and I rode bareback on father’s charger. The eagle’s plumage felt smooth and all too slippery beneath his fingers. Boromir placed uncertain hands on the eagle’s neck, schooling himself not to grasp a handful of the plumage as he would a horse’s mane. Bending a knee for the ranger to grasp, he allowed himself to be boosted up and onto the eagle’s back, landing as lightly as he could. The neck-strap was buckled on and Boromir grasped it with one hand.   He gasped as Meneldor rose up, turning towards the down slope and dug his knees into the stiff plumage.

A wind, sprung up about the hill, was blowing full into their faces, whipping Boromir’s hair across his eyes. Aragorn turned his head and shouted something, but his words were whisked away. Then his King grinned that wide, joyous smile that warmed his heart and under Aragorn, Gwaihir had spread his great wings, launched himself and they were rising. Before Boromir had time to think, Meneldor plunged forward, into the gale, there was a heave that sent his stomach plummeting and Boromir shut his eyes.


	3. The Well of Gold - Roguing 3

He was cold, the air buffeting about his torso and head, numbing the fingers clutching at the girth between his knees – and still he dared not look. It was not at all like riding a horse, he thought bitterly, more like one of those wretched narrow canoes, slipping beneath him, bucking over white water, threatening to spill them out at any moment.

Suddenly the bird seemed to heel over to the right and in an agony of fright Boromir dug his knees in tighter and opened his eyes. He would have shouted out, but as soon as he opened his mouth the rushing wind almost choked him and in coughing and gasping until the tears ran, he managed to free one hand and draw it across his face.

Now they were circling slowly upwards in a wide spiral as the eagles rode the wind. Ahead and above them Gwaihir soared and on the turn he could see Aragorn’s head and shoulders above the wing. Once, Aragorn turned, looking for Boromir and waved to him and Boromir managed a brief gesture back. 

They were gliding in a clear blue and as Meneldor seemed content to circle for the time being, Boromir tried to settle to the motion. He knew that he was too stiff, muscles straining to keep himself steady when he should be sinking in to the bird’s movements, but this was definitely not like riding a horse: where the beast’s shoulders and neck rose up in front of you, it now felt as though there was nothing in front of his knees. The eagle’s head and neck were stretched out and down. 

An eddy in the wind currents rocked the great bird gently and Boromir, one hand wrapped in the leather strap, the other thrown unexpectedly upward to keep his balance thought suddenly of a day, long ago, when he’d seen young Theodred ride an unbroken filly with only a leather girth about her, no bridle nor headcollar for she’d allow none. Meneldor drifted onwards. She’d bucked and plunged, whirled about and dropped her shoulder to tip him off at the side and when the boy hit the dusty ground she’d turned on him, front feet beating a tattoo on the packed earth whilst Theodred rolled away under the yard railings. It had taken a full day to get close enough to take the girth strap off. Theoden had let the filly go, to run loose on the plains of Rohan, but Boromir knew that each spring her foals were the most keenly sought. Brego was one of hers and at this moment Boromir would have given much to have his feet on the plains of Rohan.

Above them, Gwaihir had turned into the wind and struck out, huge wings beating slowly. Meneldor came to the top of the spiral and heeled over. Boromir clutching tightly again with both hands, trying hard to relax his body. The sun warmed his face and he judged they were flying eastwards now. The tightness in his chest had become worse, so to steer his thoughts away from the growing pain, Boromir took as deep a breath as he dared and looked down, past his right knee, towards the land beneath.

At first the rushing air, making his eyes water, and thin wisps of cloud below them made all appear blurred, but as his sight cleared Boromir saw what seemed to him a quilt of patchwork colours, of field and forest, spread out as far as his gaze might follow. Imrahil, a passionate map-maker and collector would envy him this sight.

Suddenly, Boromir caught a glimpse of a glittering white spike over to the left and realised he could see Minas Tirith! It was so small, a child’s toy, but how it shone! From being a picture of a far country the scene below them had become his country and now he looked eagerly for familiar places. 

They were flying up the line of the Anduin, still so high that he had to search to find a speck that might be a ship in the estuary. One or two bays on the Southern bank looked unfamiliar to him. And then all became clear; the mapmakers had erred, over-estimating their size and, sobered, Boromir remembered years of bloody struggle over those same small notches cut into the coastline and wondered whether all men of power might not gain from this view.

Boromir was almost certain now that he could make out the shapes of Emyn Arnen’s hills and all at once the wonder of the eagles’ freedom seemed to shrink in to the sick dread creeping inexorably across his heart. Whether the eagle read his mood Boromir could not tell, but with a lurch Meneldor heeled over to the right and seemed to be speeding forward. The birds flew alongside one another and Boromir, glancing across to where Aragorn was pointing, could see the outline of first the parkland about Faramir’s estate, and then stone turrets on the horizon.

There was a broad ride cut in the trees running towards the house and the eagles were sinking along its length. Once again Boromir felt that his stomach was rising to meet the back of his throat and now his ears were thick with rushing wind. It also seemed that the lower they came the faster they flew; the tops of the trees were rushing past and Boromir narrowed his eyes, looking for some sign of life about the buildings up ahead.

Legolas had laid out the gardens as a mixture of half-wild places and garden rooms, but they were young yet, the hedges no better than waist-height, so that as they sped above the pools and flowerbeds, Boromir could see the figures emerging, running towards the wide grassy lawn where first Gwaihir and then Meneldor came to rest.

Boromir thought, beyond the crowd, he glimpsed Eowyn, standing by an open doorway, one hand shielding her gaze whilst the other beckoned them on urgently. As he slid from Meneldor’s back, clutching a moment at the great bird’s folded wing to steady himself, a sailor on the air, come to land again, Aragorn was already striding towards the house, the steward jogging at his heels, whilst a groom who approached Boromir warily was told to ‘Step Lively’ and find the wind-lords some cool water.

His first few steps were stumbling, legs stiff, muscles chilled, but one of Eowyn’s women stood at the foot of the steps to guide him and soon they were into the sunlit interior of the house, moving swiftly along corridors and through already open doorways. 

Ahead, Boromir thought he could hear Aragorn’s voice, and he followed the sound, running, leaving the maid trailing in his wake, clutching at the doorpost as he turned in to a small parlour that had been turned in to a makeshift bedchamber, and recently. A manservant brushed past him carrying a bowl of reddened water, thick with cloths.

A low gasping from the bed and Eowyn, on her knees by Faramir’s side, lifted a bowl to receive the spittle, dragged from the depths of his body. Aragorn was unpacking his satchel of its wraps of dried herbs, pots of salves, onto a table crowded with dishes and rolls of bandage, whilst at his elbow a young man, wearing the badge of a Healer’s Apprentice and holding a broken arrow in his hands, kept up a breathless dialogue in a low voice.

Faramir had stopped retching, fallen back onto the pillows, eyes closed, and Eowyn would have wiped the sweat from his face with a cool cloth, but Boromir was ahead of her. He had seen Faramir thin before, food had not always been plentiful in Gondor, but just now his brother looked gaunt. Boromir laid a hand on his brow, noting the heat beneath his fingers. Faramir’s eyes opened and the thinnest of smiles drifted across his face, before he was wracked by another bout of sickness, held fast in his brother’s arms whilst Eowyn held the basin.

As he eased Faramir back down, Boromir’s eye was caught by the bandage wrapped about his chest. A faint stain of blood showed at one end. Faramir’s hand fluttered, seeming to draw him down. Boromir leant in, ignoring the sour smell of bile on Faramir’s breath, who whispered hoarsely, “Eowyn says that you flew with the eagles.” When Boromir nodded briefly in reply, he added, “I envy you that.”

Behind them, Aragorn had finished his preparations and as he came forward Boromir ceded his place at his brother’s side, going to stand at the foot of the couch from where he could see all, ignoring as best he could his own pain.

As he unfastened the wrappings and laid bare Faramir’s breast, Aragorn talked quietly to the man who strove to answer his questions, the effort distracting him from the sting as the cloths were peeled off to reveal what to Boromir seemed like a shallow wound, a slashing cut of no great depth, but from which ran a dark ooze. Boromir could smell it, rancid, from his station at the foot of the bed.

“Faramir, I am told that this happened not two hours ago?”

A faint nod from the sick man and Boromir opened his mouth to speak and then shut it again, as Aragorn leant down and dabbed at the weeping edge of the flesh, lifting his fingertips to his nose. For a long moment he was still, brows bent, and then beckoned over the young healer who poured hot water over his hands into Eowyn’s basin. As she stood to hand it to a maid, in exchange for a clean bowl, Aragorn took a cloth from over the healer’s arm to dry his hands. He met Boromir’s anxious gaze with a brief smile and then stooped to wipe the renewed sweat from Faramir’s forehead, saying softly,

“They have tried with cunning…but this is an old poison known to me. I can slow its progress and Lord Gwaihir can go to Minas Tirith for the remedies needed…but you will be in pain a whiles yet.”

Boromir heard a sigh from Eowyn who resumed her place, none too soon as Faramir went to nod to Aragorn and was seized by another bout of sickness. Whilst Eowyn and the healer ministered to Faramir, Aragorn was tearing open the wraps of herbs, tipping them into a mortar and beginning to grind them down to a powder, to which he was adding a pale oil, one drop at a time.

Boromir shifted uneasily from foot to foot and finally sat, heavily, on a stool by his brother’s feet. There seemed to be little that he could do. Aragorn called for a maidservant and sent her hurrying towards the garden in search of some or other ingredient.

Faramir was laid back on his pillows once again and, as Eowyn held a cup of water to his lips, his eye lit on Boromir. The brothers drank deep of the sight of one another, loathe to look away, but the apprentice wished Faramir to swill his mouth out and at last he complied, so wearily that Boromir’s felt a chill return to his heart.

The sound of running feet in the corridor and the maid, her apron gathered up about some burden, careered into the room. Aragorn beckoned her and Boromir saw that she had delivered what resembled a lump of earth, wrapped in damp muslin. Aragorn did not need to see the trouble in his love’s heart; his pain weighed on Aragorn as though he himself suffered and he would ease that anxiety.

“This is clay. When I add it to the paste, it will make a poultice and as the clay dries out it will help draw the poisons from within the Prince’s flesh. He needs must receive medicines from the Houses of Healing, but this will slow the decay, prevent it reaching his heart before we can act further.”

As he began to drop small pieces of the clay into the mortar, Aragorn glanced briefly at Faramir who was lying quiet with eyes closed. He would not have the man sink into a stupor and made to rouse him, saying sharply, “Faramir! Eowyn tells me that this attack was made by a lone child. I’m loathe to believe such a thing…surely not?”

Boromir stared at him and then rose to lay a hand on Faramir’s calf, who opened his eyes at the touch. Boromir shook him, growling, “Who did this? Was it a child?” Faramir winced as the apprentice began to clean the wound and smiled ruefully at his brother, speaking in soft tones, pausing for breath from time to time.

“Not a child, but a lad certainly. He brought a hawk to sell…she was a beauty…and would show her off. We went into the garden and the boy set her free. He stood a ways off by his horse.  I was watching the bird, she was tumbling free into the blue…and then there was a whip of fire across my breast.”

Eowyn caught up his hand to her cheek, her voice shaking, “If the arrow had struck cleanly!”

Faramir’s hand clutched convulsively about her fingers, even as he looked into his brother’s face and said quietly, “It was a good shot. He was on the horse and away before I fell.”

In calm tones, Aragorn had the room cleared of servants and guards, with the exception of the young healer who brought a bundle of clean linen strips and, as Aragorn smoothed the paste across Faramir’s breast, he covered the poultice over, slightly masking the scent of juniper that hung in the air.

They wrapped him about with bandage again and Aragorn held a small glass, from which Boromir could smell ginger and honey, to his lips. This liquor, said Aragorn, would help to settle his stomach somewhat.

The apprentice had gone, loaded down with linen and bowls, and they sat alone for a few minutes, during which time Aragorn told them the tale of Elona of the Quays who’d overheard something she ought not to have known about, but only half of a tale. He told them of his ride South, and Boromir had added his mite, that he had ‘known’ that the target was Faramir. But somehow, without exchanging so much as a word or a look, neither man mentioned either Boromir’s pain, or the manner of the eagles’ arrival on the Well of Gold. Aragorn simply repeated Gwaihir’s words, that ‘the birds of the air’ had reported his headlong dash, and allowed Faramir and Eowyn to imagine that this accounted for their deliverance. 

In truth, they were so exercised by the ‘Why’ of the larger picture that the account hardly lodged in their minds, as along with Boromir they searched for a reason. In a short time Faramir was plainly exhausted by the effort of reviewing current policies, dredging up old enmities, in search of some offence that should prompt such a deed.

More than exhausted, he began to sweat again and to become restless on the couch, so that Aragorn called up the guard in the corridor to find the healer with all speed and began cautiously to unwind the outer bandages. 

As the last layers came away, all could see the bloody mess, frothing at the edges of the poultice, running down his chest. Faramir seemed paler now and when Eowyn would have reached out to wipe away the gore, Aragorn caught urgently at her hand, warning her to stand away and when she would have protested, Boromir lifted her bodily from Faramir’s side.

The young healer was returned and, privately, Boromir thought he looked frightened, as Aragorn instructed him on how they might remove the mixture, without touching it further. A reek of rotting leaves had replaced the fresh scent of the juniper. With a grim, set jaw, Aragorn used the flat edge of a knife drenched in spirits to lever away the poultice, to expose flesh that seemed more inflamed than when they had last seen it.

Faramir was gasping for breath and Boromir could feel Eowyn shiver in his grasp, but when Aragorn looked about him for clean water, she shrugged Boromir off and fetched a jug from the table. 

They removed the poultice, every grain, and whilst the healer cleansed the wound again, Aragorn took some of the mess and added it to water in a glass beaker, stirred it about to make a pale liquid, which he examined with sight and smell and would have tasted it too, but hesitated and then set it aside. He took up the broken arrow again and went to the window, peering at the barb in the light streaming through.

Finally, Boromir thought he saw the faintest of tremors in his king’s hand, who said grimly,

“There is some other agent at work here…some thing that fought with the medecine…fed off its action in drawing out the poison. It was a trap for the healers.”  

Boromir hissed through his teeth, saying tersely, “And can you do aught?”

Aragorn’s reply was subdued,

“Yes…it is possible but…I have not met the like and we must know what was added to the old recipe.”

Then came a cry from Eowyn and they turned to see that Faramir had fallen still. Boromir started forward, but Aragorn was before him. He had snatched up a wrap that he tore open to reveal silvery leaves, which he laid over the wound so he might place one hand on Faramir’s breast and yet not touch the open flesh.

If he had been able to watch Faramir might have recognised the athelas, but as it was, the combined strength of king and herb, able to turn back the Black Breath, could do no more now than to gift him rest, for after bitter minutes during which Boromir was sure his heart had ceased to beat, they saw that Faramir slept, his chest rising and falling, shallow but steady…and Aragorn breathed heavy at his side.

As Aragorn and the healer, finished settling their patient, Boromir turned to Eowyn saying, “We need to speak to your steward and to anyone who saw this ‘boy’ with his hawk.” Tearing her eyes reluctantly from the couch, she nodded briefly, turned and was gone. 

Aragorn, looking up from the silent form before him, sent the apprentice on an errand and stood to face Boromir, a measure of anguish on his face. Boromir came to him and clasped him tightly, feeling the heat of his unyielding body and he growled and held Aragorn closer. 

“My brother owes you his life twice over…Celond’s lad could not have gifted him peace to husband the strength he has left. You said it yourself…bend and endure.”

“I should have known…” Aragorn’s voice was close to breaking, and when Boromir looked at him with brows bent, he added, “…suspected a trap.”

“Bah! This is evil, unknowable and without honour. We’ll win through yet. You fight for Faramir and I’ll find our falconer.”

Just then, Eowyn returned to the room, breathless and a little pale, so that Aragorn’s first care was for her, to seat her, one hand laid over Faramir’s on the coverlet and a beaker of sweet wine in the other.

Boromir was questioning the steward and those closest to the attack, Faramir’s secretary and two gardeners who’d been working in the flowerbeds when the hawk had been flown.   The Secretary was a capable man and gave a clear account, but he was past his prime, his eyesight not of the best and could say little more about the assassin, other than that he had appeared about fourteen years of age, neatly and soberly dressed in dark green tunic and hose, with a golden and blue hawk on his wrist.

The gardeners were younger, keen-eyed and had been working close to where the lad’s mount stood waiting for his escape. One had followed the path of the hawk and thought the falconer controlled it with a tiny bone whistle. The other, with ambitions to become a groom, had been struck by the tethered horse, firstly, because it was a fine-boned bay with Harad blood about it, and secondly, because he’d noticed that it was not tethered at all. Although the horse was alert, ears pricked and ready to run, the rein was simply laid over a low branch. This argued no common way with beasts.

When the shout came, they’d looked about to see their lord fall, started running towards him and had only whirled around as the falconer, bow in hand, vaulted into the saddle and took off at a flat gallop. With urgent summons to help lift the Prince into the house and someone to fetch a healer, they’d barely time to see him disappear down the long avenue, the hawk winging after him, but moments later the horse-lover had noticed wood pigeons rising, startled, from a bank of trees off to the right and thought it possible that the rider had turned away from the open path into forest cover.

Boromir, nodding tersely, thought this likely too and quizzed the steward about where the woodland paths might lead. Beside them, Aragorn was hastily scratching a letter, wrapping the parchment about a small jar in which he’d placed a lump of the bloody poultice and swathing the whole in bandage, stuffing the bundle into a linen bag and pulling the drawstring tight.  

When all was secure, he crossed to where Boromir and the secretary were huddled about a map. Boromir’s fingers were tracing the faint outlines of old paths, which traversed the woodland to climb the side of the steepest of the Emyn Arnen. Once at the top, there was an easy downhill trail to the edge of a wilderness of stone gullies. No kind of going for a horse, but a man, particularly if he’d supplies ready set, could hide there for an age – and Boromir knew they did not have the time to wait this falconer out.

He rolled the map up and thrust it into the secretary’s hands, saying briefly,

“How goes it?”

The King’s reply was quiet but firm.

“The Prince Faramir sleeps. I will ask Lord Gwaihir to take this message to the Houses of Healing.”

Boromir nodded, then looked for a moment past Aragorn’s shoulder to where his brother lay, still beneath his covers. The house steward appeared at that moment and thrust a pair of stout gauntlets into Boromir’s hands, who smiled at Aragorn, saying,

“And I go to hunt with Meneldor.”

As he made to strap a quiver about himself, Aragorn caught Boromir by the elbow, saying soberly,

“We need information, Boromir. Bring him back to tell what he knows.”

“Oh, he will tell, Great King,” said the Steward of Gondor, “he will tell.”


	4. The Well of Gold - Roguing 4

Meneldor was quartering the forest below them, wheeling across the landscape. To Boromir’s eyes, half-closed against the rushing wind, it seemed as though all was a mass of green. The trees had not yet acquired their summer canopy but the spring flourish hid the ground from his sight. He knew that the eagle could see the smallest creature move on open ground from a great height, but even so the froth of leaf must surely hamper him and so they tracked back and forth, Meneldor alert for any sign that man and horse had passed that way.  
  
The falconer had had two hours start if he were headed for the gullies. Boromir thought back to the map. There was no other safe route for a lone assassin who, if he could not have foreseen being tracked by one of the great eagles, would still have planned for an escape, knowing that he would be hunted down. At this Boromir let his fists clench about the girth strap. He would find the falconer and the man would tell what he knew…the “lad” would tell. Faramir’s life depended on it.   
  
As Meneldor heeled over on the current, Boromir felt his stomach roil and knew that it was not only his steed that made him uneasy. The youth he sought troubled him deeply. He thought back to the dusk when he had sat across from Gimli, quietly refilling the mugs, listening as the dwarf retold the tale of Helm’s Deep, tears rolling down his ruddy cheeks. This was not the story of a victory hard won, the darkness rolled back in a blaze of Maia light. This was the tale of the children who had fought and died beside their sires. Mostly lads, some lasses too, evading the stifling safety of the caverns to stand beside brothers or sweethearts, tucking their hair up under helmets too large for them.

Gimli had seen the distaste on Haldir’s face as he lined up his archers on the battlements beside a girl and her brother, twins by the look of them, who’d found a niche that gave the lad a clear shot. They must have seemed like babes to the elf. Aragorn had passed along the line and stopped to speak briefly to them, to lay a hand on the boy’s shoulder and direct him where to aim his fire. He’d nodded to Haldir as he passed by, who’d unbent to take the girl’s rain-chilled hands between his own, showing her how best to brace her arm, holding the heavy shield protecting her brother. If the Hornburg fell there would be no mercy and so they had chosen to fight together.

Gimli and Aragorn had found them later, as they gathered in the dead, half hidden beneath the shield. Eowyn had woven a crown of wild flowers for the lass to wear that hid the place where her skull was cleaved apart and Theoden had carried the lad to his grave as tenderly as though he were Theodred himself.  
  
As he had poured Gimli more ale, Boromir had given silent thanks for Gondor’s standing army. There had always been a clutch of young pages about the citadel, but Minas Tirith had managed to keep its children from the battlefield. In truth, although he had seen the butchery of all ages at the hands of Sauron’s forces, Boromir could not think of any that used child soldiers. Not, he suspected, from any finer feeling, but simply because they were a liability, too weak to strike hard, too soft to survive a campaign. And now he hunted a child, but one who might yet prove the death of his brother. Faramir, so gentle, so noble, would have welcomed the lad with open hand and heart, thinking no evil. The betrayal tasted bitter.   
  
Boromir shifted a little as Meneldor turned again into the wind. The eagle was making his last pass across the forest. Off to his left towered the cliff face of Emyn Arnen and he strained to see whether any figures stood at the cliff-top. Did he really think this “lad” had planned so coldly, had executed his plan so professionally that he could do this alone? Or were there others waiting for the boy, ready to guide him home?   
  
As Meneldor turned in to fly along the line of the cliff, Boromir found that he had to cling more tightly to his bearer. Where the great bird gently rode out the currents of the open skies, now the air became rougher the closer they flew to the rock face. There was a narrow track that criss-crossed the face of the cliff and it was on the second-to-last traverse that he spotted the slight figure slowly leading a horse forward amidst the boulders, along a section of path that looked to have been cut by rockfalls. The drop must have been dizzying because Boromir could see that the lad was keeping his back to the cliff-face, stepping sideways, whilst the horse came after him stiff-legged and jittery.   
  
It was as the pair came to a place where the ledge had been swept away to leave a gap of a few feet, and the boy stood momentarily on the lip undecided, that the shadow of the eagle swept over them and the horse pulled back on the rein, frightened, its hooves skittering on the loose rock. Boromir had a brief glimpse of a pale, strained face as the lad glanced up and then returned to soothing the horse. On the pommel of the high saddle a hooded hawk stamped impatiently.   
  
They had glided past and now Meneldor was rising on the current to turn again as Boromir looked back and wondered what best to do. If the eagle set down at the cliff-top now, the falconer would know his way of escape was blocked and might try to flee the way he’d come. Boromir could see that to try to turn the horse on that path would likely send both tumbling down the cliff-face. He needed the lad to reach the cliff-top and then he had only to keep him from reaching the gullies.  
  
As they swept back across the cliff, Boromir saw the lad step towards the trembling horse and swing himself up into the saddle, leaning forward along the beast’s neck to whisper in its ears. He was going to try to jump the gap with no way, surely, to take a run at it and Boromir found himself holding his breath, willing the lad on. Slowly the boy sat upright, gathering his reins, and carefully backed the horse half a dozen steps. The wind buffeting the rock-face, whipped hair about his face and, although he could not hear above the rushing air, Boromir could see the lad’s lips move. At the last he unhooded the hawk and untied her jesses from the pommel to lie loosely in his hand, then drove his heels into the bay’s sides. The horse plunged forward and launched itself into the air.  
  
For a long moment the horse hung in mid-air, before it landed in a scrambling heap on the other side of the gap and hardly pausing to glance skywards, the boy was urging it on, turning up the last traverse. Above them, Boromir was trying to use his knees and weight to turn Meneldor towards the cliff-top. He could feel a jolt beneath him as the great bird stretched out its legs, thinking to land, but it pulled away, rising sharply, when he tugged upwards on the girth.  
  
The young falconer had almost reached the end of the path as Meneldor came towards them again. The bay was beginning to panic, plunging and shaking its head as the bird wheeled overhead. Boromir gripped tightly at the eagle’s plumage, slippery between his knees, and notched an arrow to the short bow. He could bring down the horse, but he’d do it as a last resort.   
  
Now the lad had reached the cliff-top, with a few hundred yards of flat ground between him and the maze of gullies. He began to drive the horse forward, careering towards the wall of boulders, but an arrow striking the ground at the bay’s feet sent it whirling again to face the cliff-edge and the looming bulk of the eagle. Meneldor screamed and the beast reared up.  
  
Even through the dust being raised by Meneldor’s beating wings, Boromir could see the face of the lad as he struggled with the frightened horse. Once he glanced up and Boromir was taken aback by the anger in the boy’s eyes. He saw the lad throw his arm skywards and the hawk was loosed. The boy was pulling the bay’s head about to make another try for the rocks, when suddenly a blue and gold streak flashed past Boromir’s shoulder. The hawk, claws down, plunged for Meneldor’s eye. The eagle heeled sharply over and Boromir, notching another arrow, felt himself suddenly free in air.   
  
He was falling, through cold nothing, limbs flailing against nothing with no time, no time for regret, only the blue above and perhaps he gazed into dark eyes which burned clear and as he closed his own to the world, drew breath to name his loves aloud, there came a crushing pain and he was wrenched about, like a broken doll.  
  
Meneldor’s claws were digging into his ribs, but he lived! He lived and breathed and the bird was rising once again, swooping in to set down on the cliff-top, the dusty ground rushing towards him. An image of the eagle landing, talons splayed, on the Well of Gold came to him, just as he was dropped the last few feet sprawling in an ungainly heap, gasping on the earth.   
  
His heart felt as though it thundered in his chest and Boromir could not stop himself digging his fingers into the dust, clinging on to the unmoving earth, pressing his body down to feel the hard, unyielding ground. As he closed his eyes for a moment, his cheek against some dry grass he felt, rather than saw, the eagle lift off from beside him, turning into the updraft and launching itself from the cliff-top.   
  
He was caught between hard earth and heavy air. There was a darkening about him and a faint rumble far away, as the first cold drops of rain spattered on his cheek.   
  
Boromir scrambled to his feet, reeling back from the edge as he glimpsed the drop and the feeling of falling swept over him again. He was stumbling, but he could see the riderless horse wandering amidst the rocky outcrops of the gullies and began to run towards it. The rain was coming in torrents, the sudden downpour making the dusty ground slippery. The arrow thudded into the earth before his feet and sent him sprawling into the lee of a boulder.  
  
Over the noise of the storm, thunder rolling around the valley as it grew closer, the falconer’s voice came faint from the shelter of the rocks.  
  
“I owed you one warning for the horse…”   
  
Boromir listened to the strain in the young voice and lay back against the boulder. Water had plastered his hair to his skull. He could feel it dripping down his neck and he opened his mouth, tilted his head back to take in some drops, closing his eyes against the first flash of lightening. It danced white behind his lids. As the thunder crashed overhead, he could hear the clatter of the horse’s hooves on the rocks and still he did not move. The falconer would speak again. A seasoned warrior would have been on his way, into the maze of gullies and to safety by now, but a seasoned warrior would have brought him down with that first arrow. The falconer would speak again and he would know where the lad was hidden – if he could hear aught above the rumble of thunder.  
  
When the call came, muffled by rain, Boromir was crouched, ready to sprint to a nearby outcrop of rock, covered in overhanging scrub. Few bowmen could shout and let fly at the same time, so he’d take the chance to move closer. He had only the long dagger from his belt now, but if he could he’d take up the spent arrow as he passed it. The storm was beginning to pass over, the interval between the flashes and accompanying thunder lengthening.  
  
“Go home, hunter! Take the horse and go!”  
  
Boromir scrambled panting into the lee of the rocks, crouching behind a twisted trunk. The pain in his chest was making his breath come short. There was a faint note of pleading in the shouts coming to him across the open ground.  
  
“We have no quarrel, hunter…go home…”  
Boromir let the words hang in the sodden air for a few moments before he bellowed,  
“I thought you sought the Steward, boy?”  
Silence was his only reply.  
  
He laid his cheek against the rock and waited. The smell of rain-washed myrtle was flooding his senses, scrubby bushes transformed into a mist of clean perfumed leaves. The last of the rain was dripping through the grey foliage and across his breast the flesh burned. He would not, could not, wait so long.  
  
Taking a deep breath, Boromir stood up, stepping out from behind the boulders and beginning to walk slowly forward. From a cluster of gullies ahead of him, he thought he heard a noise like a gasp and he stopped, spreading his hands open, dropping the arrow and the dagger on the ground.  
  
“I am Boromir, Steward to Elessar, King. If you have business with me, stand forth and name it!”  
The voice that answered him was old before its time, he thought, the tone too grim for the lightness of youth; as though he heard Arin’s friends at play, aping the voices of grown men.  
“Go home! I have too few arrows left to waste on mercy…”  
“I have seen your mercy! A coward’s blow to a gentle prince…to my brother, boy!”  
The silence that answered him served only to spur Boromir on. Once again he began to walk forward, shouting,  
“Your hawk kills with more honour…a clean kill…”  
The barb striking the ground before him brought him up short again. Boromir stooped, plucked the arrow from the earth and broke it in two.   
There came a cry of frustration from the gulleys and now Boromir believed he knew where the falconer lay hidden.  
“Do you value your life at nothing?”  
Boromir stood square in reply, arms folded across his chest. It seemed to him that a note of exhaustion had crept into the boy’s voice as he cried out,  
“Any man may call himself mighty. My business with the Steward is done. Like the dust beneath your feet.”  
At this, Boromir started, but before he could do aught, from out of a leaden sky Meneldor swooped and there was an agonised cry as the eagle arose again, a slight figure struggling in his grasp.  
  
“Meneldor, bring him here!”  
  
Boromir shouted, gesturing urgently at the eagle, just as a blue-gold dart came plummeting towards Meneldor, shrieking with rage. This time, the great bird snapped his head about and the hawk was tumbling from the sky. It landed in a broken heap close to Boromir’s feet, trying to rise again on broken wings, shattered legs, flapping helplessly on the ground.  
  
The eagle landed beside him with a rush of feathers, the body now limp in its grasp and Boromir saw it lay its great curved beak, across the boy’s throat, poised, like a Harad blade to slash through soft flesh. He did not know if the boy had breath to cry out, but the mixture of defiance and loss in his young face as he looked up into the gold-rimmed eye, caught at Boromir as little else could have done.  
  
“Meneldor!”  
  
Boromir bent to grasp one of the talons in both hands, tugging at it, saying,  
  
“Leave him be, friend.”  
  
The clawed foot gradually relaxed and the youth rolled on the earth, gasping for breath. As Boromir looked grim-faced on his brother’s attacker, the boy’s eye lit on the broken hawk, which mewled quietly and he crawled the short distance to the bird, kneeling to gather it in both hands.  
  
Boromir heard him whisper low to it, crooning in some tongue Boromir did not know, then the falconer turned the little bird over, saw the shattered legs and with a whisper and a soft smile, he swiftly wrung its neck.   
  
In the quiet aftermath, for the first time, the youth looked into Boromir’s face and then down at the limp body in his grasp. The boy’s thumbs still stroked the blue and gold plumage and he said haltingly, “She was true to me. She was my shield and companion.”  
  
Boromir nodded. This youth was not as he had envisaged a Harad assassin. Blue eyes beneath a thatch of sandy hair and beneath the mud smeared across his face, perhaps there were smudges of freckles. His clothing, without its dirt and wear, had been plain but good. There was nothing to make the lad remarkable, Boromir thought, nothing at all to signal his trade.  
  
Now he was knelt in the mud, piling small stones about the body of the hawk. Boromir saw him hesitate in laying the last stone in place that hid the blue and gold plumage from view. Then from about his neck he took a thin chain with a tiny bone whistle and scrabbling in the earth with his fingers, he laid the whistle with the bird.  
  
Boromir shook himself. All the while Faramir’s life lay in the balance. Time was short and he must do what was needful. He could feel his fists flex unbidden at his sides. Boromir was suddenly aware that the lad stared hard at him, his eyes sweeping across Boromir’s countenance as though he would engrave it upon his memory. One hand left the hawk’s cairn and crept up across his own face. Boromir realised he was tracing the Warg scars and he felt blood come to his cheek, making him speak more abruptly than he had intended.  
  
“We have too little time, boy, to tarry here. Meneldor will carry us back and if you struggle, he will bear you like carrion in his claws. The King must speak with you. You will tell him all and…” he took a deep breath, “if my brother lives, your life is in his hands. Do you hear me!”  
  
It seemed to Boromir that the youth knelt before him as though turned to stone, but as Boromir bent down to grasp him by the arm, the boy shrank back. Behind Boromir, Meneldor stamped impatiently as the lad bowed his head, saying,  
  
“There is nothing to tell, _bramhir_. My life is forfeit, come what may.”  
  
This time Boromir was too quick and dragged him upright by the shoulders to shake him, snarling that none would die this day…yet it seemed as though all resistance had gone from the boy. When no amount of shaking could make him speak further, Boromir raised his fist to strike, but the lad gazed still at him with such intensity that the blow never fell.  
  
“Do the scars hurt you?”  
The youth’s whispered question caught Boromir so much by surprise that he’d answered truthfully before he knew it, that it was as nothing to the agony of Faramir’s plight,.   
  
As he spoke, Boromir had slackened his grasp and now he stepped away from the boy, stooping to retrieve his dagger. As he straightened, his tone was grave, all heat gone from his words.   
“We must make haste, lad. Undo the evil, if it is possible. Come.”  
At this he turned to walk towards Meneldor. A sudden movement behind him made him spin around. The boy had lunged for the broken arrow and before Boromir could do aught, he had closed his hand on the barb.   
  
Boromir saw his blue eyes glaze for a moment, his mouth open in a silent cry, and then saw the blood welling through the boy’s clenched fingers.  
“No!” he roared, springing forward and snatching up the boy’s hand, he prized apart the fingers. The falconer did not struggle, but let the arrow fall.  
  
“The debt is paid, _bramhir_ ,” he whispered as Boromir swore beneath his breath, peering closely at the deep cut across the boy’s palm. When he would have set his lips to the gash to draw out any poison, the boy cried out and wrested his arm free, before sinking to the ground.  
  
The horse stood quiet nearby. Boromir strode across to it and caught up the rein before it had time to move away. He swiftly undid the girth and lifted the saddle off, then he slipped the bridle from the beast’s head and turned it away, with a gentle slap on its rump. He made short work of unbuckling the gear and when he returned to the boy, still slumped where Boromir had left him, he had the saddlebags over his arm and the reins coiled in his hand.  
  
Hardly pausing for breath, Boromir hauled the lad up and marched him to where Meneldor was nestled on the ground, next to a rocky outcrop. He half pushed, half pulled the boy to the top of the rocks and, ignoring his faint protests, he lifted him onto the eagle’s back. Then he scrambled up behind him and threw the rein about them both, tying it tight about their waists. The lad was beginning to fail, slumped back against his chest and Boromir could hear his laboured breath coming short.  
  
Boromir wrapped one arm about the limp body and with the other hand, that shook a little, he stroked along Meneldor’s neck, calling out, “Now, Wind-runner!” The eagle lurched to its feet and as it spread its wings to launch itself into the air, Boromir could feel that the fingers the boy had laid over his own were already cold. Now, Meneldor the Swift, he thought, set the wind at our backs and fly!


	5. The Well of Gold - Roguing 5

He had thought that he now knew what it was to fly, but Meneldor’s beating wings were speeding them along so swiftly that he felt pushed against the eagle’s back and in desperation jammed one foot through the leather girth circling its neck.

He was fighting for breath against the frozen wind, ducking his head down against the lad’s hair and, despite the difficulty of keeping the boy upright, he unwound one arm from about his chest and laid his hand protectively over the boy’s face, curved about his mouth and nose. At first, he thought he could feel the puffs of air against his palm, even through the gloves, but soon the boy slumped, a dead weight, in his arms. He should have thought of the cold! Put the boy into shelter behind him!

If Boromir could have cried out in anger and an agony of regret he would have done it, only the salt tears torn from his eyes by the gale speaking to the depth of his despair, but Meneldor was diving now and Boromir lay back, his face stinging and his ears suddenly filled with pain. 

It was the angle of the great wings, coming in to land, that kept him from tumbling to the ground as Meneldor braked hard into the wind and set down on the greensward with a shudder.   Boromir was dimly aware of eagle cries to the right, from where Gwaihir and a smaller eagle were ducking their heads in greeting, even as men appeared to take the boy from his frozen hands.

As they went to lift him down, Boromir was pulled forward and remembering the rein that bound them together, he fumbled to unwind it. At the top of the steps to the house, Aragorn had appeared and received the falconer’s body, turning away to carry him swiftly from sight. 

Eager hands helped Boromir down. As he gasped for breath, the elderly secretary peeled off his gauntlets and was chafing Boromir’s fingers between his own. A maidservant had picked up the saddlebags from where they’d fallen onto the grass and laid them gently over his arm as Boromir finally shrugged his carers off and began to limp towards the house.

Where earlier he had followed the sounds of fevered activity along the corridors, now all seemed quiet within the house. Only his own footsteps sounded on the flagged floors and it occurred to him that beside his brother’s light step, he had a tread like a weary bullock.

As he approached, the door to the room where he’d last seen Faramir opened and a maidservant carrying an empty pitcher whisked past him along the corridor. Boromir laid a hand against the closing door and entered as quietly as he might, so as not to disturb the low buzz of conversation in the room.

The falconer had been stretched out on a long table and standing with their backs to him, Aragorn and the familiar figures of Celond and his assistant were clustered, heads together, divesting the lad of his clothing.

Faramir still lay, eyes closed, unmoving on his improvised bed. Eowyn sat at his side, clasping his hand between her own. Her thumbs moving gently and rhythmically on his brother’s skin reminded Boromir of the boy and the dead hawk. He shuddered involuntarily and the sudden movement drew the attention of the healers who looked around.

Aragorn crossed to him in a few strides and pushed Boromir back into a high-backed chair, leaving him slumped against the arms for a moment, to fetch him a beaker of some liquid which he pressed into Boromir’s hands, saying firmly, “Drink – you will be chilled to the bone.”

As he lifted the cup, its warmth seeping into his palms, Boromir’s gaze fell on the falconer. Celond and his assistant had the tunic open to the waist and he could see the pale skin of the lad’s chest. Boromir looked up at Aragorn, saying wearily,

“Will he live?”

Across the room, Celond heard his voice and turned to him.

“My Lord Boromir,” he said, “this boy has been fortunate today.”

Boromir wondered if the thin air he had flown through had addled his brain. It seemed he could make no sense of what was happening, but before he would enquire further Aragorn had lifted his hands, with the beaker in them, up and to his lips and Boromir swallowed a good mouthful of hot, spiced, ale.

He could feel the heat spreading out across his chest and drank again, letting his eyes close momentarily, leaning back in the chair. He felt Aragorn’s fingers wrest the empty beaker from his grasp and when he opened his eyes again, Celond stood before him.

Boromir would make account.

“I thought only to keep him safe on the bird’s back. I should have put him behind me, out of the wind.”

Celond gestured to where his assistant was gently cleaning the wound on the boy’s palm.

“This is the same poison?”

Boromir took in a deep breath.

“Aye. The lad did this to himself.” 

He heard a low murmur across the room and met Eowyn’s steady gaze.

“He felt his life was forfeit come what may and now ‘the debt was paid’.”

Aragorn’s eyes narrowed, but Celond waved away the ideology. His concern was with the body living and he laid a healer’s hand to the pulse on Boromir’s neck, feeling for its beating as he said softly.

“The cold has been his friend, my lord. It has slowed the course of the poison, as being buried in ice slows the decay of meat.”

Beside them Aragorn had opened the saddlebags and was lifting out the falconer’s gear – some soiled hose, a roll of coarse sacking that held the tools to make and repair the hoods and jesses for his hawks, a coiled bowstring, a pouch of what looked like Shire pipe-weed, although there was no pipe to be found, and finally, at the bottom of one of the bags, lay some twists of parchment, held close in a little drawstring bag.

Celond pounced on these and he and Aragorn took them across to a table by the windows, carefully unwrapping them and tipping the contents onto a platter, mindful not to touch the powder with bare skin.   It was as they raked through the crimson dust, Aragorn using the tip of a knife to spread it thinly on the pewter plate that the assistant, who had been examining the little bag, exclaimed aloud.   He could just make out some symbols inked there and Celond took the pouch from him to hold it up to the light.

Boromir believed that he had never before seen the healer smile, but the delight that swept over his face as he pointed to one symbol, tracing the faint outline with his nail, told the weary man all he needed to know and Boromir shut his eyes against the renewed bustle in the room, Aragorn’s brisk orders, Eowyn’s excited questions. His part was done, for good or ill, and he felt a great lethargy begin to seep through his bones. 

Even with his eyes closed, Boromir knew the moment when Faramir began to waken from his stupor. He could hear his brother’s breathing hitch and shift, reaching down deeper into his chest and at this Boromir let the salt tears start to seep through his lashes. He felt Aragorn beside him take up his hand, long fingers pressing against the throbbing vein at his wrist. Now he felt light-headed, almost as though pulled upwards from the chair and the pain was fading, going from him, the iron-band about his chest was easing.

As he heard his brother say Eowyn’s name, soft but clear, Boromir opened his eyes. Faramir’s bandages had been removed and the assistant was sponging the wound. Behind the couch Celond stood, a cup in hand.

Boromir looked up questioningly at Aragorn, who bent to him and began to wipe away the dust caked about his eyes and mouth, saying quietly,

“It was venom from a sea creature, a spined fish that hides in the sand and yet,” he added, smiling, “it is hot salt water that can wash away the poison, let Celond’s potions do their wholesome work.”

Boromir’s gaze fell on the still figure of the falconer.

“You should have tried the cure on him first.”

Aragorn hesitated and then continued as Boromir closed his eyes again, to clean the crusted muck from his skin.

“He gave you no reason?”

“None.”

There was a bleak quality to Boromir’s voice that Aragorn had heard before but rarely, a mix of anger and incomprehension at the stubbornness of others that boiled up in his love and came out in words that were belied by a tender heart.

 “I do not think this was done for gold,” Boromir said, looking up at him. “The boy does not have the mercenary’s sense of self-preservation. He cared naught for his life at the end.”

In the room, Celond had left Faramir to Eowyn’s tender ministrations and with his assistants was busy about the lad, steeping his whole forearm in salted water, whilst another forced the boy’s jaws apart to tip a mixture down his throat.

When he began to shift and moan a little, Boromir struggled to his feet and walked over to the table. He looked on, grim-faced, as the boy’s eyelids flickered and opened. It seemed to those about the table that his gaze fixed on Boromir with something like fear in his eyes, but the man turned away before the lad could try to speak and left the room.

Once the worst had passed, in a few days Faramir had recovered enough to begin to protest his enforced leisure, but in truth he was thinner than Celond liked and often breathless. Boromir would relieve Eowyn of some routine burdens and busied himself with the household. He sent the keen young gardener on an expedition to retrieve the bay horse and bring it back by a longer, safer route. Meanwhile Aragorn bethought himself to the possibility of further attacks on Gondor and spent some time in counsel with Gwaihir.

They had placed the boy in a small chamber, comfortably appointed but with bars on the windows and a guard at the door. In a few days Celond reported him fit for questioning. He had also given an account of a series of old circle brands on his back, and more recent rope marks about his wrists and ankles.

When they brought him before the Prince of Ithilien, Faramir sat in a high-backed chair with Eowyn beside him. The falconer did not seek to evade his gaze, but in truth Faramir thought he had not seen such blank despair for many a year. It was a look he had hoped lay in Gondor’s bloody past.

The falconer faced him bravely, but answered little when asked why he had attacked him, other than to say that it was his task above all things.   Boromir, who had been sitting, consumed by barely suppressed rage, would have started up, but Aragorn caught at his arm. It was Elessar, who arose and Boromir wondered at the way in which he could reveal himself in the moment, as though drawing aside a plain cloak to show grave splendour beneath.

The boy’s eyes widened and he seemed to glance towards Boromir for succour, but Elessar’s stern voice, demanding to know his name and the names of those who had instructed him, brought him to his knees before the King.

“It was my father.” The boy’s voice was a whisper. “My life was his, now…” and the strained blue eyes once more sought out Boromir, who stepped forward, saying grimly,

“How should I call you, boy?”

“Co…Corran, Lord _bramhir._ ”   

…………………………………………………………………………………

At Celond’s insistence they brought the Prince of Ithilien and his lady back to Minas Tirith by gentle stages. Boromir had asked his brother if he wanted to fly, but although there was a fleeting hesitation and a suggestion of regret in his brother’s expression, he was not surprised when Faramir squeezed Eowyn’s hand, silent beside him, and declined the honour.

Of the eagles only Meneldor was left. Just now he was settled on the lawn preening, and Boromir thought himself unobserved when he went to say farewell. At the open window, Aragorn stood watching – and listening.

The great gold-rimmed eye gazed unblinking on him, as Boromir ran his hands gently over the plumage, Meneldor leaning slowly into his touch. Then Boromir knelt and clasped both hands around one of the huge talons. He looked up at the eagle, saying gravely,

“I thank you, Meneldor, Wind-Lord, and speak for my brother, for my son and for my King. I fell and you caught me up to breathe again and walk upon this earth, which is as a map unrolling beneath your high wings. You and yours will ever be dear to the House of the Stewards.”

The eagle tossed its head and as Boromir arose it laid the curve of its beak against his chest.

“Farewell, Meneldor the Swift,” said Boromir gruffly.

“Fair wind, _bramhir_ ,” replied the eagle quietly and as he stood, struck dumb, the bird turned from him and launched itself into the blue.

Boromir was still, his head bowed, for a long time, but it was Aragorn who watched Meneldor spiral upward until he was hidden from view in a blaze of sunlight, and who did not check the tear that ran on his cheek.

Celond had been content for Faramir and Eowyn to occupy rooms in the House of the Stewards. Faramir tired more readily than was his wont, but that would pass and a few weeks away from the burdens of state, spent sitting in the garden, walking and riding, would be a suitable convalescence. Possibly Celond was not aware of how many hours Faramir spent in Boromir’s library, surrounded by boxes of old documents. It was more likely he was happy for Eowyn to regulate her husband’s scholarship, to see that he ate regularly and took enough exercise and fresh air.

They saw less of Boromir than might have been expected. The Lord Steward was consumed by work, always glad to see them certainly, but he did not seek them out. Possibly this was because his ever-present shadow might have brought up too many questions that could not be answered. 

Elessar, for once, seemed actively dis-interested in the manner of justice in his realm and referred the case of the would-be assassin back to Ithilien for a decision. Faramir, on hearing the story of the fight on the cliff-top, resolutely consigned the fate of the falconer to his brother. Boromir would not keep the boy a prisoner and, for lack of any other solution to the problem, had temporarily let him take on some of the duties of page, fetching, carrying, standing behind his chair at mealtimes. He would not have him in the house, kept Arin from his sight, for in truth he found it hard to measure the boy’s actions against his soldier’s idea of a trustworthy companion, but at the same time, Boromir thought perhaps, one day…

Again and again Boromir’s remembrance had returned to his father. Denethor would not have boys in the guard to kill or be killed, no matter how his captains fretted over thinning ranks and Boromir had seen him pass along the line at an inspection and drag forth a lad, tall for his age but barely fourteen, who would have followed a much loved brother to war. Boromir had waited with sinking heart for the cutting words, but Denethor had merely straightened the boy’s collar, told him to be sure to return at the proper time when he would be looked for, and went on his way. They were Gondor’s seed corn, a too precious charge.

Corran said very little, but watched keenly, a quick study and neat in his movements.  Boromir had begun to consider that perhaps they might find a more regular training for him, when one afternoon Faramir, sat quietly surrounded by open volumes and scattered parchments, gazing at the patterns of coloured light cast on the floor by the evening sun, was interrupted in his reverie by a crash as the library doors swung violently back on their hinges and his brother stalked in.

Boromir was in a fury, but it was a baffled, frustrated rage, and Faramir was not surprised to hear that the boy was gone, taking not only the bay horse, but also a pair of young hawks! Some dull-witted, son of a drunken fishwife guarding the main gate had simply let the Lord Steward’s page pass!

After the first outburst had dissipated, Boromir became aware that his brother sat, a curious half-smile upon his lips, as though waiting for him to quieten and at last he did falter, take in a deep breath and sit down heavily on the bench opposite Faramir, shaking his head. 

As the shadows lengthened in the room, Faramir began to tell him, almost casually, of his reading through the dusty records of their family’s service to Gondor and of a strange legend he could not account for. He was sure it was nothing he had ever heard from their father.

Elendil had favoured a man who came from the south and wielded great power over living things. It was said he was a Dunedain who carried the blood of the ancients. Men loved and feared him and he marked his own with whips of fire. Once, a fleet of Corsair ships had raided the southern lands and carried off a great number of his people. Gondor sent an army to lay waste to Umbar, but neither kingdom was ready at that moment to fight to the death and a truce was arranged. Most of the captives returned home, but the Corsairs had offered freedom to any as would join with them and one clan chose this road. Their lord could not go against his King at that moment, but he cursed them, told them that they would bring naught but death wherever they went and at the last they would be reclaimed to their sorrow, for his gaze would be upon them.

In the silence that followed, Faramir began to roll up some of the parchment leaves. Boromir listened to the soft scrape of the vellum in his brother’s hands, but finally, arose saying firmly that it was late and Eowyn and Arin would be expecting them for supper and he could see that Faramir was weary.

As they walked to the door, Boromir began to grumble once again about the falconer, worrying that he had no food with him, no warm gear against the night chills. Boromir held the door open for his brother to pass. In the doorway Faramir paused for a moment and turned to him, saying,

“He called you _bramhir_.”

“Couldn’t get his tongue around the Gondorian accent,” said Boromir gruffly.

“No brother,” Faramir replied, laying his hand briefly over Boromir’s. “It means ‘seer’. 

**Author's Note:**

> This story has been edited since its first posting at alex-quine.livejournal.com. It comes after 'Seedtime' and before 'Harvest Home'.


End file.
